TIFF 51: “The Debut” Explodes off the screen and into the Oscar race!

by Eurocheese

In Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut, heltered housewife Mona Friedman (Julianne Moore) is the only person who applies for a small role in her local community theater musical other than perennial starlet Serena Cherry (a lovely cameo from Bernadette Peters). When the diva drops out for a better part in Annie Get Your Gun, the grouchy director, Jerry (Paul Giamatti), is forced to cast Mona, much to his chagrin. The film’s trailer suggests a straightforward premise, and the audience assumes we know where it is headed. When Jerry decides to push Mona to test her limits to draw a better performance out of her, though, he breaks something in her. And then, the film is off to the races...

Spoiling where exactly the story heads from there would be robbing our readers of discovering the extreme lengths it goes to as it unravels and spins into the surreal. Eisenberg wrote this role specifically for his leading lady and understands what so many of us at the Film Experience have known for decades – that Julianne Moore is one of the greatest actresses walking this earth. He refreshingly allows her to bloom into full comedic mode and turns The Debut not only into a love letter to any actor who felt that initial spark of greatness in their first role, but also a tribute to a medium he clearly loves beyond reason. This film is maximalist, ridiculous, madcap and spends much of its time simply marveling at what Moore can bring to the screen, providing an actor’s showcase that would make any Hollywood star drool. Mona’s lifelong repression turns her artistic expression volcanic, and the only way to describe watching her grapple with every new challenge is pure joy.

On a personal note, as someone who has always dreamed of coming to the Toronto International Film Festival and would probably pick the launching of Still Alice into the Oscar race as the moment I most wish I could have experienced in person, this was everything I could have hoped for in a screening. Hearing the audience roar with laughter as Moore sends herself further down the rabbit hole, scene after scene, will be one of the core cinematic memories I talk about for the rest of my life. Pretending to be unbiased about this is pointless – we are going to get a full season (again!) of endless praise for my personal favorite actress of all time, and I was here to witness it all start in person. I am still buzzing, writing this in the middle of the night because who can sleep after an experience like this?

Though the film is all about a celebration of Moore’s abilities, it finds its heart in Paul Giamatti’s grizzled director, who is whatever Mona needs him to be in any given scene – sometimes a harsh critic, sometimes a gentle mentor, always pining for the days when he was himself on stage. Giamatti joked in the Q&A, as an audience member talked about the throughline between Sideways, The Holdovers and now this role, that he IS a depressed middle-aged man – what did we want from him? (Moore also joked about how she couldn’t escape her housewives.) As the plot becomes completely untethered from reality, his pathos finds a way to ground the film’s evolution in the lens that Oscar voters will bring to the table – watching a new talent (even a volatile one) emerge and tying it back to the moment when they felt that magic themselves. Will this finally be the role that brings him home an Oscar? Honestly, whatever the film’s awards fate, this will be a moment when everyone involved can point back and reflect on a time when they enthusiastically explored every angle they could find. 

Both Moore and Giamatti highly praised Eisenberg’s script, saying it was one of the best they’d ever read. The hammy musical being performed by the theater troop served a dual purpose for him – he explained that while he understood we were meant to find it laughable, he genuinely thought it moving, joking that it represented “the ceiling of his talents” as a writer. He talked about penning the film when he feared A Real Pain was going to crash and burn, hoping he could sneak a script as far from the naturalism he was aiming for as possible to Julianne, assuming it would let him pivot away from disaster. He said he was most excited to share this movie with the TIFF audience, and given the big laughs I heard from the crowd and applause breaks throughout, it’s no wonder.

Since we are dealing with a musical, there are a number of original songs included in the film, many of them lightly poking fun at this genre in the theatrical arts. The central song for Mona’s character, Miss Danielle, is “This City May Have Chewed Me Up (But It Hasn’t Spit Me Out),” and we are treated to several versions of it. Bernadette Peters kicks off the film with a soaring rendition for her audition, followed by Mona’s muffled take, which Jerry doesn’t even allow to reach its final note. As the film maps Mona’s development, the song serves as a barometer for her progress. I was curious how much singing we would actually see from Julianne here, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well she acquits herself. Could this be an Original Song contender up against the likes of Taylor Swift and Dianne Warren? Given the Academy’s strong affinity to voting against a win for those two, I would say absolutely. For all the humor directed at the fake musical “Nosy Neighbors,” the songs are earworms and clearly show Eisenberg’s reverence for the genre as a theater kid himself.

Before signing off and getting some much-needed sleep so I can enjoy the festival I came to Toronto to experience, let me say this – if you are a Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti or Jesse Eisenberg fan, if you are a theater kid at heart, or if you are simply a cinematic nerd (like me) who goes to films every year hoping to get swept up in worlds that take you out of your everyday grind, allow yourself to get swept up in this one. The Debut is goofy and campy and too much, but it celebrates the industry we know and love with its whole heart. I honestly don’t care if history decides this is a camp classic or a masterpiece – it is a chance for all of us to hand the stage to one of our greatest living talents so she can be vulnerable, silly and triumphant in one of the greatest showcases of her career.

Who could ask for anything more from a film? And with that, my friends, I bid you goodnight.